The Second Sleep by Robert Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m sorry that this is going to be a rather short review, simply because there is very little I can say without giving away major parts of the plot. The story begins in 1468 with a young English priest, Christopher Fairfax, making his way from the cathedral at Exeter to the small village of Addicott St. George. The local priest has died and the bishop has assigned Fairfax the task of presiding over the funeral and burial.

That’s about all I can say, except that things are not always as they seem, and the situation in 1468 has some curious echoes of Covid19 pandemic that we are dealing with today.

I really enjoyed the book; Harris tells a very interesting tale and it’s well worth the time spent reading it. I will say that the ending seems a little abrupt and although all of my questions were not answered, it is a satisfying conclusion.

Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit by Chris Matthews
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have very mixed feelings about “Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit.” On one hand, it does provide some interesting insights into Robert Kennedy as a person, and how he grew and changed over the course of his life. On the other hand, it is a somewhat muddled book; it could easily be a biography of John Kennedy and parts of it could be classified as being autobiographical.

The book traces Kennedy’s life from being one of the younger children in a large family, to his death in 1968. It is well-written but in places it relies heavily on anecdotes. I also had the feeling that in some sections of the book things were left out or over simplified just to keep the page count down. There are also several errors, either in editing or fact checking, which should have been caught.

Overall I like the book. I appreciated the focus on Kennedy as a person, but this is not a substitute for a more thorough biography.

Under Occupation by Alan Furst
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Under Occupation is the latest story by Alan Furst. I’ve read all of the books in his Night Soldiers collection, and this one is just not as good as the others. In places it really seems more like an outline, that will be filled in later.

The story follows journalist/author Paul Ricard in Occupied Paris in 1942. Through a chance encounter with a man being pursued by the Gestapo, Ricard becomes drawn into the activities of the Resistance. And that’s about all I can say without spoilers.

The main problem with the book is that it does not seem like a finished work. Ricard’s activities with the Resistance seem like unconnected episodes. Minor characters appear then disappear only to reappear as needed. Random chance seems to play an unusually large role in some of the activities.

I really can’t recommend this book. If you’re a fan of the series like me, then of course you will read it. If you are new to the series, I strongly recommend reading a few of the early novels before reading this one.

Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History by Simon Winder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first book in a series of three books by the author on the history of Central Europe; I have read them out of sequence, having finished “Danubia” before reading this book. The author is not kidding about the “wayward pursuit” aspect of the book. As I mentioned in my review of “Danubia” the narrative is very anecdotal and tends to jump from place to place geographically, though it does remain in roughly chronological order.

The main topic is Germany, which Mr. Winder covers from the Roman times up to 1933. Most of his personal stories are interesting and work with the narrative very well. This is especially true for the long stretch between the Thirty Years War and Napoleon when there were literally hundreds of small German states. Sure, we might be familiar with Austria, Prussia, Bavaria or Saxony but what about Hesse-Darmstadt and Schaumburg-Lippe?

There is a lot of history in here, and for the most part it’s a good read. There are many parts of the book where I thought the author did an outstanding job in explaining things, for example his discussion of the coming of the First World War is very good. But there are a few places where the personal stories kind of overwhelm the narrative, so I think this book is not quite as good as his next book “Danubia”. But overall I think it is a book that is well worth reading if you are interested in German history.

For That One Day: The Memoirs of Mitsuo Fuchida, the Commander of the Attack on Pearl Harbor by Mitsuo Fuchida
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For That One Day is a very interesting memoir from Captain Mitsuo Fuchida who planned and executed the raid on Pearl Harbor and eventually wound up becoming a Christian missionary. He lived an interesting life to say the least!

Fuchida has written about the Pacific War elsewhere, so this is really more of a personal remembrance as opposed to a military history. It does contain a lot of interesting details about the Pearl Harbor attack and his experience at Midway. Because it is not a military history, Fuchida is not shy about offering his opinion on people and events. He is not too happy with most of the admirals that he served under – they were too timid.

I found the story of his conversion to Christianity to be fascinating. And his stories of his mission trips to the United States are very interesting as well – he was able to meet with many of his former adversaries, like Nimitz and MacArthur and also then President Eisenhower.

Fuchida never really completed this memoir – he had some serious medical issues and only wrote about a third of what he had planned to write. Even so, it’s a very compelling story. The editor and translators did a remarkable job. I strongly recommend this book.

Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe by Simon Winder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Danubia is, for me at least, a rather unusual history book. The author is not kidding about the “personal history” aspect! The narrative is very anecdotal and tends to jump from place to place within the former Habsburg empire, but it does remain in roughly chronological order. Although the personal stories form the places that the author visited can make for a choppy narrative in places, it also makes it easy to put the book down and pick it back up again a week or two later.

I found that the author’s personal stories about the places he visited in the course of his research really brought the Empire to life and added quite a bit of color to what can often be the tedious tale of the Habsburgs and their domains. There’s a lot of Central European history here, but by focusing on places and people and their stories, the book is much more enjoyable than most of histories of the Habsburg empire. I really enjoyed reading it, and if you’re interested in the history of Central Europe I recommend that you give it a try.

Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War by Tim Bouverie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Appeasement is a history of British foreign policy in the 1930s. Beginning with the accession of Hitler to the German chancellorship, continuing through the Munich Conference of 1938 to the attack on France and the Low Countries in 1940 the author traces the complete failure of the policy of appeasing Hitler and Mussolini.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is the most well-known of the appeasers, but appeasement was a popular policy, not just within the Chamberlain government but within society as a whole, simply because nobody wanted another large scale conflict after the First World War. There were “anti-appeasers” as well – most famously Winston Churchill – but they were a small group without a large following. We often think of the Munich Conference when we hear the word appeasement, but that was neither the beginning nor the end of appeasement.

The author has crafted a compelling narrative of this period. I am familiar with this period of history but I learned quite a few things. Of course we know how it all turns out: appeasement was a disaster. But there were so many opportunities to avoid the looming disaster that it is a fascinating and tragic story.

Grant by Ron Chernow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Grant is probably the current definitive biography of Ulysses S Grant. It is a comprehensive look at the life of the the 18th President and victorious leader of the Union forces in the Civil War.

If you have studied or read about the Civil War and the United States in the mid 19th century, you know the basic story. If not, there are spoilers here. Grant went to West Point and served in the Mexican War, along with a host of other officers who served on both sides of the Civil War. Grant struggled with alcoholism and eventually left the army. He was not successful in civilian life and when the Civil War broke out he joined the Union Army. He had a great gift for military leadership and lead the successful campaigns in the western theater, most notably leading to the capture of Vicksburg. When he moved to the eastern theater he lead the campaign that resulted in the capture of Richmond and the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox.

After the end of the war and Lincoln’s assassination, Grant was pushed forward by the Republicans to replace the ineffective Andrew Johnson. Grant was elected to two terms and his administration was marked by a number of scandals, none of which directly involved Grant, but still reflect poorly on his ability to choose the right person for the job. After leaving office, Grant traveled extensively and made and lost a fortune. He completed his memoirs before dying from cancer.

Even though I knew the basic story of Grant’s life, there were still plenty of interesting things that I learned by reading this book. For example, Grant’s support of the rights of African-Americans, both as the leader of the Union Army and later as president was much more extensive than I had been aware of. I also learned a lot about the Reconstruction-era South and the rise of the “Lost Cause” mythology, which to some extent, is still with us today.

The author has written a very long book with a lot of detail in it, but it is an easy read: it’s very well-written and easy to follow. It took me a while to finish it, but I really enjoyed this book.

The Battle of Arnhem: The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II by Antony Beevor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Battle of Arnhem is the latest book from Antony Beevor. This covers not just the battle for Arnhem involving the British 1st Airborne Division, but also the rest of Operation Market-Garden. This is a very detailed look at the entire operation, and provides a wealth of information about the operation and where it went wrong. It is very compelling story, of poor planning, wishful thinking and the courage of ordinary soldiers. Beevor continues the story beyond the battle and we learn what happened to the Dutch civilian population during the “hunger winter” of 1944-45.

If anything, there is perhaps too much detail. It is sometimes hard to follow the narrative as we jump from one unit to another, or one sector of the battle to another.

I do like the book, but I think it suffers somewhat in comparison to A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan. Though the Ryan book is fairly old at this point and new sources and information have come to light since it was published in 1974, it does have a very good narrative that helps the reader place people and events in their proper context.

Heads You Win by Jeffrey Archer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have mixed emotions about this novel by Jeffrey Archer. On the one hand it is an interesting concept; a young man and his mother flee Leningrad at the height of Cold War, and it’s a matter of chance where they wind up – the United States or the UK. On the other hand, it’s kind of sloppily written, so it does not exactly compel you to finish reading it. But the advantage is that you can put the book down and pick it up days later without really losing your place.

The structure of the novel is that it alternates between the two options available to the Karpenkos on the docks of Leningrad. We follow the parallel stories of Sasha Karpenko in Great Britain and Alex Karpenko in New York. It’s an interesting concept and it serves the author’s purpose fairly well, except for the occasional editing error. If you separate out the stories, this is vintage Archer: lots of local color, many characters and the cameos by historical figures. But there are also odd leaps in both stories that are not adequately explained, and despite all of the exposition in the early going, the conclusion to both stories seems rushed.

The novel is entertaining but clearly it’s not Archer’s best work. Many of his earlier book, such as First Among Equals, are much better in terms of the storytelling.